Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries

Source: Letters from an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries, (1803). The Political Thought of Saint-Simon, Oxford University Press, 1976.
'Letters', omiting hypothetical 'Reply'.

I am no longer young, I have observed and reflected actively all
my life and your happiness has been the end to which all my work
has been directed; I have thought of a project which I think might
be useful to you and I now propose to tell you about it.

Open a subscription in honour of Newton's memory: allow everyone,
no matter who he may be, to subscribe as much as he wishes.

Let each subscriber nominate three mathematicians, three physicists,
three chemists, three physiologists, three authors, three painters
and three musicians.

The subscriptions and nominations should be renewed annually,
although everyone should be completely free to renominate the
same people indefinitely.

Divide the amount of the subscriptions between the three mathematicians,
the three physicists, etc., who have obtained the most votes.

Invite the President of the Royal Society in London to receive
the subscriptions for the first year. In subsequent years, entrust
this honourable duty to whomsoever has given the highest subscription.

Make it a proviso that those who have been nominated should accept
no posts, honours or money from any special group, but leave each
man absolutely free to use his gifts as he wills.

Men of genius will in this Way enjoy a reward which is worthy
of themselves and of you; this reward is the only one which will
supply them with the means to give you all the service of which
they are capable; it will become the object of the ambition of
the most active minds and will deflect them from anything which
might disturb your peace of mind.

Finally, by doing this you will be providing leaders for those
who are working for the progress of your enlightenment; you will
b endowing these leaders with great prestige and you will be placing
considerable financial resources at their disposal.

I have addressed this project directly to mankind, because
it is in its collective interest; but I am not foolish
enough to hope that mankind will immediately put it into execution.
I have always thought that its success would depend on how much
support the most influential would decide to give it. The best
way to win their votes is to explain the matter as fully as possible.
This is what I intend to do by addressing myself to different
sections of mankind, which I have divided into three classes.
The first, to which you and I have the honour to belong, marches
under the banner of the progress of the human mind. It is composed
of scientists, artists and all those who hold liberal ideas.
On the banner of the second is written 'No innovation!' All proprietors
who do not belong in the first category are part of the second.

The third class, which rallies round the slogan of 'Equality'
is made up of the rest of the people.

I would say to the first class: everyone to whom I have spoken
of the project I am presenting to mankind, has, after a short
discussion, finally approved it. All have wished it well, but
they have also all let me see that they feared it would not succeed.

This general conformity of opinion makes me think that I am likely
to find everyone, or at least most people, of the same way of
thinking. If this presentiment comes true, the force of inertia
will be the only obstacle to the adoption of my views.

You, scientists and artists and those of you who devote some of
your energy and your means to the furtherance of enlightenment,
you are the section of mankind with the greatest intellectual
force; you have the greatest talent for grasping new ideas. You
are the most directly interested in the success of the subscription;
it is up to you to overcome the force of inertia. Let the mathematicians,
since they head the list, make a start!

Scientists, artists, look with the eye of genius at the present
state of the human mind; you will see that the sceptre of public
opinion has fallen into your hand; grasp it with vigour! You
can create happiness for yourselves and for your contemporaries;
you can preserve posterity from the evils from which we have suffered
and from those which we still endure; all of you, subscribe!

To the members of the second class, I would then address the following
words:

Gentlemen,

Compared with those who own no property, you are not very many in
number: how, then, does it come about that they consent to obey
you? It is because the superiority of your intellect enables
you to combine your forces (as they cannot), thus for the most
part giving you an advantage over them in the struggle which,
in the nature of things, must always exist between you and them.

Once this principle has been accepted, it is clearly in your interest
to include those without property in your party; those who have
proved the superiority of their intelligence with important discoveries;
and it is equally clear that the interest being general for
your class, each of the member who compose it should contribute.

Gentlemen, I have spent much of my time among scientists and artists;
I have observed them closely and I can assure you that they will
exert pressure on you until you decide to sacrifice your pride
and the money needed to place their leaders in the most
respected positions and to provide them with the necessary financial
means to exploit their ideas fully. I would be guilty of exaggeration,
gentlemen, if I allowed you to believe that I have found this
intention fully formulated in the minds of scientists and artists:
No! Gentlemen, no! I can only say that such an intention exists
in a vague form; but I am convinced, by a long series of observations,
of the existence of such an intention and of the influence which
it can exert on the ideas of scientists and artists.

Until you have adopted the measure which I propose to you, you
will be exposed, each in your own country, to the sort of evils
which some of your class have suffered in France. In order to
convince yourselves of the truth of what I have said, you have
only to think about the events that have occurred in that country
since 1789. The first popular movement there was secretly fomented
by scientists and artists. Once the success of the insurrection
had lent it the appearance of legitimacy, they declared themselves
its leaders. The resistance they encountered to the direction
they gave to that insurrections direction aimed at the destruction
of all the institutions which had wounded their self-esteem - provoked
them to inflame the passions of the ignorant and to burst all
the bonds of subordination which, until then, had contained the
rash passions of those without property. They succeeded in doing
what they wanted. All the institutions which from the outset
they had intended to overthrow were destroyed inevitably; in short,
they won the battle and you lost it. This victory was to cost
the victors dear; but you who were defeated have suffered even
more. A few scientists and artists, victims of the insubordination
of their army, were massacred by their own troops. From a moral
point of view, they have all had to bear your apparently justified
reproaches, for they were responsible for the atrocities committed
against you and for the disorders of every kind which their troops
were led to commit under the barbarous impulse of ignorance.

Once the evil had reached its height, the cure appeared; you no
longer resisted. The scientists and artists, having learnt from
experience, and recognising that you were more enlightened than
the propertyless,, desired to see sufficient power returned to
you to restore the regular functioning of the social organisation.
The propertyless bore almost the whole brunt of the famine brought
about by their own improvident measures. They were brought to
heel.

Although force of circumstances had led the people of France ardently
to desire the restoration of order, they could only be reorganised
as a society by a man of genius: Bonaparte undertook this task,
and succeeded in it.

Among the ideas I have put before you is the suggestion that you
have lost the battle. If you remain in any doubt on this subject,
compare the amount of prestige and comfort which scientists and
artists now enjoy in France with their position before 1789.

Gentlemen, do not take issue with them, for you will be beaten
in every battle in which you allow them to embroil you. You will
suffer more than they during hostilities and the peace will not
be to your advantage. Give yourselves the credit of doing something
with good grace which, sooner or later, the scientists, artists
and men of liberal ideas, joined with the propertyless, will make
you do by force: subscribe to a man - it is the only way open to
you to avert the evils which threaten you.

Since this question has been raised, let us be brave enough not
to leave it without glancing at the political situation in the
most enlightened part of the world.

At this moment in Europe, the actions of governments are
not troubled by any open opposition from the governed; but given
the climate of opinion in England, Germany and Italy, it is easy
to predict that this calm will not last long, unless the necessary
precautions are taken in time; for, gentlemen, you cannot conceal
from yourselves that the crisis which faces the human mind is
common to all the enlightened peoples, and that the symptoms which
appeared in France, during the terrible explosion which occurred
there, can be detected at the present moment by an intelligent
observer in England, and even in Germany.

Gentlemen, by adopting the project which I am proposing, you will
limit the crises which these peoples are fated to suffer, and
which n power on earth can prevent, to simple changes in their
governments and finances, and you will spare them the general
upheaval undergone by the French people-an upheaval in which all
existing relations between the members of a nation become precarious;
and anarchy, the greatest of all scourges, rages unchecked until
it plunges the entire nation it afflicts into a depth of misery
which finally gives birth, even among the most ignorant of its
members, to the desire for the restoration of order.

I would appear to be underestimating your intelligence, gentlemen,
if I were to add further proofs to those which I have just submitted,
to prove to you that it is in your own interest to adopt the measure
which I propose, in the light of the evils from which it can save
you.

It is with pleasure that I now present the project to you in a
light flattering to your self-esteem. Think of yourselves as
the regulators of the progress of the human mind; you can
play this part; for if, through the subscription, you give prestige
and comfort to men of genius, one of the conditions in the subscription
is that those who are elected are debarred from holding any position
in the government, you will thus safeguard yourselves and the
rest of humanity from the drawbacks of placing effective power
in their hands.

Experience has shown that at the moment of their conception an
admixture of harmful elements is generally found in new, powerful,
just ideas, on which discoveries are based. Despite this, if
their inventor had the power he would often demand that they should
be put into practice. This is an example of one particular disadvantage.
But I would draw your attention to another of a general nature.
Always, if a discovery is to be put into practice which requires
a change in existing customs and habits, the generation which
has witnessed its birth can only enjoy it through its feeling
for future generations who are destined to profit from it.

I conclude this little discourse which I have ventured to address
to you by saying:

Gentlemen, if you remain in the second class, it is because you
want to do so, for it lies in your power to climb into the first
class. Now let us turn to the third class:

My friends,

There are many scientists in England. Educated Englishmen have
more respect for scientists than they have for kings. Everyone
can read, write and count in England. Well, my friends, in that
country the workers in the cities) and even those in the countryside
eat meat every day.

In Russia, if a scientist displeases the emperor his nose and
cars are cut off and he is sent to Siberia. In Russia the peasants
are as ignorant as their horses. Well, my friends, the Russian
peasants are badly fed, badly clothed and are frequently beaten.

Until now, the only occupation of the rich has been to order you
about; force them to enlighten themselves and to teach you; they
make you work for them with your hands-make their hands work for
you; do them the good turn of relieving them of the burden of
boredom; they pa . y you with money; pay them with respect: it
is a far more precious currency; happily, even the poorest owns
some of it; spend what you have wisely and your lot will soon
improve.

To enable you to judge the advice which I am giving you, and to
appreciate the advantages which can follow from the execution
of my project for mankind, I must go into some detail, but I will
confine myself to what is essential.

A scientist, my friends, is a man who foresees; it is because
science provides the means to predict that it is useful, and that
scientists are superior to all other men.

All the phenomena we know of have been divided into different
categories: astronomical, physical, chemical and physiological.
Every scientist devotes himself more especially to one of these
categories above the rest.

You know some of the predictions made by the astronomers: you
know they foretell eclipses; but they also make a host of other
predictions to which you pay no heed and with which I shall not
trouble you. I shall confine myself to saying a few words about
the use to which they are put, the value of which is well known
to you.

It is by means of the predictions of astronomers that it has been
possible to determine exactly the relative position of different
points of the earth; their predictions also make it possible to
navigate the farthest oceans. You are familiar with some of the
predictions of the chemists. A chemist tells you that with this
stone you can make lime and with this one you cannot; he tells
you that with such a quantity of ashes from a particular tree
you can bleach your linen just as well as with a far larger quantity
from another kind of tree; he tells you that one substance mixed
with another will yield a product with such and such an appearance,
displaying certain properties.

The physiologist devotes himself to the phenomena of organic bodies;
for instance, if you are ill, he tells you "You feel this
symptom today; well, tomorrow you will be in such a condition."

Do not run away with the idea that I want you to believe that
scientists can predict everything; of course they cannot. And
I am even sure that they can predict accurately only a very small
number of things. But you have convinced yourselves, just as
I have, that scientists are men who can predict the most in their
own field; and this is, of course, because they only acquire the
reputation of being scientists by the verifications
which are made of their predictions; at least this
is so today, although it has not always been so. This means that
we must look at the progress made by the human mind; despite my
efforts to express myself clearly, I am not absolutely sure that
you will understand me at first reading, but if you think about
it a little, you will do so in the end.

The first phenomena which man observed systematically were astronomical.
There were good reasons for this, since they were the simplest.
In the beginning of astronomical research, men confused the
facts which they observed with those which they Imagines,
and in this primitive hotch-potch they made the best combinations
they could in order to satisfy all the demands of prediction.
They gradually disentangled themselves from the facts created
by their imagination and, after much work, they finally adopted
a sure method of perfecting this science. The astronomers accepted
only those facts which were verified by observation; they
chose the system which linked them best, and since that
time, they have never led science astray. If a new system is
produced, they check before they accept it whether it links the
facts better than the one which they had adopted. If a new fact
is produced, they check by observation, that it exists.

The period of which I am speaking, the most memorable in the history
of human progress, is that in which the astronomers drove out
the astrologers. Another observation which I must make is that
since then, the astronomers have become modest harmless people,
who do not pretend to know things about which they are ignorant.
You, for your part, have stopped asking them presumptuously to
read your future in the stars.

Chemical phenomena are far more complicated than astronomical
ones, so men only came to study them much later. In the study
of chemistry, the same errors were made as in the study of astronomy,
but eventually the chemists rid themselves of the alchemists.

Physiology, too, is still in the bad state through which the astrological
and chemical sciences have already passed; the physiologists must
expel the philosophers, moralists and metaphysicians from
their midst, just as the astronomers expelled the astrologers
and the chemists the alchemists.

My friends, we are organic bodies; by viewing our social relations
as physiological phenomena I conceived the plan which I am putting
forward, and it is with arguments drawn from the system which
I used to co-ordinate physiological facts that I shall demonstrate
to you the value of this plan.

It is a fact, confirmed by a long series of observations, that
every man feels, to some degree, the desire to dominate others.
What is clear, according to reasoned argument, is that every man
who is not isolated is both actively and passiveo dominant
in his relations with others, and I urge you to use that little
portion of domination which you exercise upon the rich.... But
before going further, I must discuss with you something which
angers you deeply. You say: we are ten, twenty, a hundred
times more numerous than the proprietors and yet they exercise
a power over us veg much greater than that which we wield
over them. I can understand, my friends, that you are aggrieved.
But notice that the proprietors, although fewer in number are
more enlightened than you are and for the general good power should
be distributed according to the degree of enlightenment. Consider
what took place in France during the period when your comrades
were in power. They brought about famine.

Let us now return to my plan. By adopting and putting it into
practice, you will permanently entrust to mankind's twenty-one
most enlightened men, the two great instruments of power: prestige
and wealth. The result will be that, for many reasons, the sciences
will make rapid strides. It is well known that the study of the
sciences becomes easier with every advance made, so that those
who, like yourselves, can only devote a short time to their education
can learn more, and as they learn more, they lessen the extent
of the power exercised over them by the rich. It will not be
long, my friends, before you see the resultant benefits. But
I do not want to waste time in speaking to you of the remote consequences
of a course of action which you have still not decided to take.
Let us rather speak about what you can see before your eyes at
this very moment.

You give your respect, that is to say you voluntarily give a measure
of power to men who, in your view do things you consider to be
of use to you. Your mistake, which you share with all mankind,
is that you do not make a clear enough distinction between temporary
and lasting benefits; between benefits of local interest and those
of universal interest; between things which benefit a part of
mankind at the expense of the rest, and those which increase the
happiness of the whole of mankind. In short, you have not yet
noticed that there is only one interest common to all mankind:
that of the progress of the sciences.

If the mayor of your village obtains a concession for you over
the neighbouring villages, you are pleased with him, you respect
him; city-dwellers exhibit the same desire to exercise superiority
over other towns in the vicinity. The provinces compete with
each other, and there are struggles of personal interest between
nations which are called wars., Among the efforts made by all
these factions of mankind, can we see any which aims directly
at the common good? It is a very small effort indeed-which
is not surprising, considering that mankind has not yet taken
any steps to agree collectively on the subject of rewards
for those who succeed in doing something for the common good.
I do not think that a better method can be found than the one
which I propose, for uniting as far as possible all those forces
acting in so many, often contrary, directions; for leading them
as far as possible in the only direction which points to the betterment
of mankind. Now, for the time being, enough about the scientists.
Let us speak of the artists.

On Sundays, you find delight in eloquence, you take pleasure in
reading a well-written book, in looking at beautiful pictures
or statues or in listening to music which holds you entranced.
Hard work is necessary before a man can speak or write in a way
which will amuse you, or can paint a picture or carve a statue
which pleases you or can compose music which affects you. Is
it not fair, my friends, that you should reward the artists who
fill the pauses in your work with pleasures which enlarge your
minds by playing on the most delicate nuances of your feelings?

Subscribe my friends! No matter how little money you subscribe,
there are so many of you that the total sum will be considerable;
besides, the prestige bestowed on those whom you nominate will
give them untold strength. You will see how the rich will hasten
to distinguish themselves in the sciences and the arts, once they
realise that this road leads to the highest honours. Even
if you only succeed in diverting them from the quarrels born of
their idleness, over how many of you should be under their command,
quarrels in which you are always embroiled and of which you are
always the dupes, you will have gained much.

If you accept my plan, you will encounter one difficulty that
of choice. I will tell you how I should set about making my own.
I should ask all the mathematicians I know, who are, in their
opinion, the three best mathematicians, and I should nominate
the three who have gathered the most votes from those whom I had
consulted. I should do the same for the physicists, etc.

Having divided mankind into three parts, and having presented
each with what I thought were the reasons why they should adopt
the plan, I shall now address my contemporaries collectively and
lay before them my reflections on the French Revolution.

The abolition of the privilege of birth required an effort which
burst the bonds of the old social system and did not present an
obstacle to the reorganisation of society. But the appeal which
was made to all the members of society to carry out their duties
of deliberation regularly had no success. Apart from the terrible
atrocities which resulted from the application of this principle
of equality, as the natural result of putting power into the hands
of the ignorant, it also ended in the creation of an utterly impractical
form of government, because the rulers, whowere all
paid so that the propertyless could be included, were so numerous
that the labours of the governed were barely sufficient to support
them. This led to a situation absolutely the contrary of what
the propertyless had always wanted, which was to pay less taxes.

Here is an idea which seems to me to be fair. The basic needs
of life are the most pressing. The propertyless can only partly
satisfy them. A physiologist can see clearly that their most
constant desire must be the reduction of taxes, or an increase
in wages, which comes to the same thing.

I think that all classes of society would be happy in the following
situation: spiritual power in the hands of the scientists; temporal
power in those of the proprietors; power to nominate those called
upon to carry out the functions of the great leaders of mankind
in the hands of everyone; the reward for those who govern to be — esteem.